


A perspective on Oxenfurtian medical education in the 13th century, through the accounts of Jaskier the Bard and the apocryphal Chanson du Sorceleur corpus. Introduction

by abernathein



Series: The Sokal Affair but make it Gay [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Academia, Alternate History, Essays, Gen, M/M, Oxenfurt, no beta we die like georges canguilhem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abernathein/pseuds/abernathein
Summary: Our understanding of thirteenth century medical education in Oxenfurt has been always filtered through the lens of the Statutes of Oxenfurt of 1270 and the consequent Purge of the Medical Schoole enacted by Protorector-Vicar Marcel of Guignabeunne. As such, much of the earlier documents were passed down to us in a fragmentary form at best.With this work my aim is to offer a new perspective on the matter, through the reading of literary accounts of pre-Statutes Oxenfurt. These accounts not only prove to be deeply informed by the author's medical education and experimentation in his travels (on this matter see also Dorotea Abernatti, Experimentation on the Path, New Sciences and Secret Lore of a Witcher's Companion, PSE Press, Posada, 1985) but they also form a current of knowledge that informed the vernacular understanding of medicine in the following centuries. It is this vernacular knowledge that can account for the otherwise unexplicaple resurfacing on many pre-Statutes theories in scholarly and popular works.Just a short introduction to start with, but a concept I hope to expand soon. Thank to Spencer_B, who had the idea and whose poem "If to Sleep I should dream of You" made me effing cry
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Sokal Affair but make it Gay [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729399
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53





	A perspective on Oxenfurtian medical education in the 13th century, through the accounts of Jaskier the Bard and the apocryphal Chanson du Sorceleur corpus. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Translations of Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23951182) by [forestdivinity (ForestDivinity)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestDivinity/pseuds/forestdivinity). 



A perspective on Oxenfurtian medical education in the 13th century, through the accounts of Jaskier the Bard and the apocryphal Chanson du Sorceleur corpus.

Introduction

1\. _Minced meats and the Wound Man._ _Introduction._

Often times the study of highly bureucratized institutions like the Oxenfurt Studium Generale proves to be a simple if cumbersome task. The exception to this norm certainly is the reconstruction of medical curricula during the infamous Purge of the White Flame, a twenty year long attempt of enforcing nilfgaardian cultural egemony on the Continent at large, and specifically on its cultural epicentres, such as the Studium Generale and its Medicine Schoole. This process resulted in the 1270 Oxenfurt Statutes, a censorship of the disciplines and _theses_ taught at Oxenfurt that involved the prohibition of teaching, privately and publically, many notions of medicine, but also astronomy, philosophy and cosmology. Enforced by Protorector-Vicar Marcel of Guignabeunne, this process only temporarily stunted the transmission of knowledge, but it had the long-term consequence of irreparably altering our perception of the times that preceed it, due to the loss of much of the earlier Oxenfurt archive material.

  
  


The explanation to this peculiar cultural shift lies in the vernacular and non-specialistic knowledge, that went on beyond the control of the new nilfgaardian appointed censors. This continual transmission of knowledge went back into the official channel of university studies immediately after the relenting of censorship, thus taking back its former status, while the only sources on pre-Statuses Oxenfurt remained ignored in the vernacular, and only recently have been recognized1 as the incomparable source of material on the previous season of university education. One of the most often quoted of what I’ll refer to as the _vernacular lineage_ of knowledge transmission can be found in the venetian Wound Man illustration, found in the _Fasciculus Medicinae_. This fifteenth century medical miscellany features many unsourced bits of information that have been recognized as the resurfacing of previously lost or censured knowldge, which finally passed from the oral form that had allowed its survival back into the official channel of specialistic lore.

An unexpected shift that can be perfecly accounted for, considering that the _Fasciculus_ was imprinted by the master editor Ioannes de Gregoriis, the very same Zuanne (John) Gregorianus who printed some of the most popular collections of ballads, holy and profane music and poetry, and above all the first print collection of _Chanson du Sorceleur_ material2. This late text is of uncomparable value to understand the interplay of written and oral material in the recovery of censured knowledge. In this case, the accurate if gorey description of the butchered corpse of _Good Gualdo the Idiot_ 3 is literally transposed in visual form in the the pages of the _Fasciculus_ , and what started as the mocking account of a rival’s death, became probably the most widely known medical illustration for the description of wounds and bruises. A closer reading of the _Chanson_ proved crucial for the reconstruction of the _Fasciculus_ sources, but we are only now understanding how deeply the _vernacular lineage_ affected the wider culture for entire centuries4.

Lastly, the most striking aspect of the whole matter is the massive influece of the bardic and prose production attributed to Jaskier the Bard, both in literature and the arts, and in technical matters such as medicine. The most widely known passages of the _Chanson_ are still often times sung in historical reconstructions today. In this passage the narrator recollects his memories of waiting for the hero while he faces the Striga monster, fighting it all night long to finally free the narrator himself from the tower where he has been imprisoned:

_Où sont partis tous les bons hommes ?/ Et où sont tous les dieux ?/ Où est Hercule le dégourdi ?_

_J'ai besoin d'un héros./ J'attends un héros jusqu'à la fin de la nuit_

_Il devra être fort/ Et il devra être rapide/ Et il devra être prêt au combat_

_J'ai besoin d'un héros_

_J'attends un héros jusqu'aux premières lueurs du matin_ _ 5 _

  
  


And what of his influence in Oxenfurt, the city that he called home for so long? His words are still spoken there every day, for example in the mottos of the Italian Nation6, “ _In su la Potta!_ ”, and the English Nation,“ _You can cunt on me!_ ”, quotes from his well known work _The Night Inn._

  
  


1D.K. Allen, C. Marteen, Thirteenth Century Works, Knowledge outside the Golden Gates of the Studium, Oxenfurt S.G. Press, Oxenfurt, 2003.

2F. Bonnetta, Chanson du Sorceleur : a first proposal for an official edition, Presses Sorbonne Université, Paris, 2009.

3Possibly a mocking refence to the proverbially dishonorable death of thirteenth century trobadour Valdo Marx.

4C. Marteen, Medicine for Courtiers and Ladies: Vernacular Galenism in Renaissance Italy, Bibliotheca Ranunculiana, Oxenfurt S.G. Press, Oxenfurt, 2006, vol. 7, p.118.

5 _“Where did all the men of valour go, and where are all the gods? Where is Hercules the cunning? A hero I need, I am awaiting for him until the end of the night. And strong he must be, and quick he must be, and also ready to fight. A hero I need, and for him I shall await until the lights of morn.”_ from F. Bonnetta, B. Tyler, Love poetry from the Chanson du Sorceleur, an Anthology, Oxenfurt S.G. Press, Oxenfurt, 2009, pp.36-37.

6That is, the associations of students respectively from Italy and England.


End file.
